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We can debate what constitutes usual vs. unusual for hours so I’d rather focus on what is actually going on. What is actually going on, in scientific and social circles, is the investigation of claims thought to be worthy of investigation *because* there IS good reason to investigate. You can label these claims as unusual and unsupported all you like but that doesn’t change the fact that experts in various fields are taking them seriously.

“Thus, they should not be accepted even by advocates as true till they are shown to be true. Period.”

I agree. Likewise, they should not be accepted by pseudoskeptics as FALSE till they are shown to be false. Right now there are good reasons to think some might be true – which is why we continue to investigate.

“I don’t give a damn about PSI claims for the same reason why I don’t give a damn about other extreme claims that remain unsupported. If you are interested in that, spend your time on those issues and then get them published somewhere with credibility.”

I give a damn because I’m interested in learning the truth. Maybe we will never know the truth though.

If this seems harsh, just ask yourself why PSI claims should be given special treatment — be given a green light past any analysis — when other less extreme claims require quite a bit of analysis and verification.

BTW…I did not mention science.

Your analogy doesn’t work. Though I readily admit that evidence to date *doesn’t* prove (in the scientific sense) the telepathy claim, you can’t say there is NO evidence to support this very common claim.

Ironically, science thinks telepathy claims are worth invesigating/testing precisely because so many people claim it is true – which means it IS a very usual claim. Kind of like the claim of free will and the existence of the self, both very usual claims. Why would science spend precious time/money investigating these claims if there was NO reason to do it? It wouldn’t.

In your example, science wouldn’t bother looking into the unusual claim of eating dragon eggs because there’s no reason to think the claim is true. This is not the case with telepathy – because it’s not that unusual a claim – and it’s why your analogy doesn’t work.

In common conversations …

* The default position on usual claims (seen in normal life) is to accept them provisionally, tentitively.

* The default position on un-usual claims (not seen in normal life) is to not accept them till support is provided and then to accept them provisionally, tentitively.

So, conversations about what each of us had for breakfast would be accepted to the point that they became unusual. For example, if you said that you had eggs for breakfast, I’d say “OK, how were they?” If you replied “It took me 45 minutes just to eat them — dodo eggs are huge!” I’d be justified in not believing you had dodo eggs for breakfast. If you clarified it and said that “dodo eggs” meant ostrich eggs and the restaurant had a theme that made sense to call them “dodo eggs” then I’d think that was unusual but that it was possible.

It may be that neither of us had eggs this morning — ostrich or chicken — but both are in the realm of possibilities with chicken eggs being the more likely of the two.

In the case of telepathy and other PSI claims, the claimant is making claims that they had dragon eggs for breakfast — and they literally mean dragon eggs (as in the winged reptile that breathes fire) not komodo dragon eggs or any other substitute.

If they have proof, they can provide it. If they just make claims without proof and with no way to verify the results, they do deserve to be laughed at.

Fradulent findings don’t determine the truth-value of the unknown ones. I’m not into believing the gambler’s fallacy I guess.

we *do* have the capacity to determine whether these “1000s of tests” hold up. yet you would rather not know… very telling.

Of course I’d like to know – assuming it’s even possible to know. I never said otherwise. Your false assumption has been noted…

>This is good, and is pretty much the way I think about these things. I’m not rushing to say anything has been proved, but I’m also not dismissing it like some do just because it has the word ‘telepathy’ associated with it.

the vast majority of any findings have been shown to be fraudulent. you’re okay with this?
we *do* have the capacity to determine whether these “1000s of tests” hold up. yet you would rather not know… very telling. your arrogant comment has been noted…